


To Care, To Reassure

by kibahshi



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Insecurity, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 16:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5134997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kibahshi/pseuds/kibahshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t often that it was him comforting her. It wasn’t their dynamic. But as odd a pair that they made, they were still only human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Care, To Reassure

**Author's Note:**

> "I'm with you, okay? Always." Kellam/Miriel (as requested on tumblr, from[ this prompt collection!)](http://kibbleal.tumblr.com/post/120764987840/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you)
> 
> Spoilers for Laurent's supports with his father! (I sure do love allowing calm and collected characters to show more emotion than they're allowed in canon)

“He’s very much like you… I suppose that that could be considered a blessing, could it not?”

Kellam looked at his wife, so often forgetting that she could see him and hear him even if just the mere thought of her would always jog his memory. Miriel was his _wife_ now, and the son they had retrieved so recently from the amongst the desert sands was but another reminder of that, of Kellam having something of which he could have only _dreamed_ of once upon a time. She was his _wife,_ and Laurent very much his son but…

“Have you cleaned your glasses lately?” He asked, brow furrowing as Miriel looked up at him from where she’d taken his arm, her small hand resting within the crook of his elbow upon sun warmed armor perhaps by reflex. Her features twitched, a brief look of confusion forming in her eyes and he stopped her before she could bring her hand to her glasses. “I wasn’t— It was a joke. Just a joke. Trust me, your glasses are as clean as ever.” He reassured.

They were clean, if not cleaner. He knew she cleaned her glasses compulsively when she was stressed, and there was not a time as of late where he didn’t see her clean them at least twice, daily.

“Oh…” Miriel’s hand dropped, rising after a beat of silence to prop her glasses further up her nose before looking at him as though he was yet again some new peculiarity. There was that crinkle to and between her eyes, with the curious spark that always came to them when she found something she didn’t understand, ever a woman who would rarely admit to confusion. It was only the faint- near imperceptible- knit to her brow and Kellam’s own experience in reading her face at this point that dismissed the tone of her expression as being mere curiosity. “Forgive me. It is unlike you to joke in a manner so unprompted… Did I say something amusing?”

The corner of Kellam’s lips lifted. “A little.”

“Oh?”

“ _You_ might’ve been joking but I could have sworn that you said our son was like _me._ ”

Miriel frowned, eyes narrowing. “I fear myself incapable of ever understanding why I would jest about something like that… You fail see it?”

“Ironically enough, yes.”

“How peculiar… Perhaps he is too much like you, then; I have heard that it is harder for those who are most alike to see the ways in which they are… Strange, though. I would have thought you capable of noticing such things.”

“You mean like how he’s _nice_? Or how he was _forgotten_?” The thought still hurt him; the idea that he had a son, much less one who suffered a fate none too different from him… and one that surely must have felt even more hopeless. Recent times had proven that with enough effort Kellam COULD be noticed, and he knew that regardless of how those around him acted, there were still some people who remembered him anyways. The armor he wore was proof of that, as were the stack of letters from the last of his family who _cared_ that he kept bundled tight as mementos amongst his and Miriel’s possessions. It had been Miriel who helped bundle them. Even going so far as to sort them by date.

But Laurent had had none of that. No family in this world; none that he could contact at least, and no one to believe or help him beyond what was surely just courtesy and good deeds. There was still too much strife and pain from the war for anyone to take a boy in- much less a young man- so freely… And Laurent didn’t seem the type to ask. Too afraid of being a burden.

Something must have shown on his face because Miriel’s expression turned as sympathetic as was normal for her, forming in how her eyes faintly softened.. “It is impractical to think yourself responsible for something of which you were never aware in the first place, my dear… If you fault yourself for such things then I, too, am to blame.” She murmured and Kellam sighed. Eventually, Miriel shifted, resting her cheek against his armor and for once Kellam was glad to be free of the large pauldrons that normally adorned him, as uncommon to him as his wife’s more affectionate of behaviors still were. It was unlike her to act in a manner so… so…

He couldn’t even think of a word for it, as none would suit her. Too stoic to be needy, and too controlled to be clingy. Miriel wasn’t an overly affectionate person in the first place, even if there were times where her desire to be closer- like now- were made obvious, her concern often shown in the same manner.

“I am simply expressing my how glad I am for him to take after you. I believe his life will be much easier for him this way… Unfortunately, I myself do not have much to offer him. As a colleague, perhaps, but a mother?” She shook her head, her red hair tousling slightly where her head rested against him. “He takes more after you in terms of who he is, however similar his mannerisms may be to my own. I am proud of how intelligent and capable he has become but I wouldn’t wish for any child I bore to end up being as much like me as I am to _my_ mother.”

“I… don’t understand.”

“I would not expect you to.” She propped her glasses up again from where they’d jostled. “This is a predicament very much my own, and one I will have to navigate my own way out of—”

“That’s not what I _mean._ ” He blurted. Miriel looked at him in surprise. He didn’t interrupt her often, nor she him. It was an agreement they had seemed to unconsciously come to. “How could you think that you have nothing to offer him? You’re so smart that it’s baffling sometimes, Miriel, but of all people I would have thought you to be the _last_ person to talk about yourself like that…” He frowned. “You’ve never said anything like this before. You’ve never _talked_ about yourself like this before. How could you think you have nothing to offer him?”

Her fingers twitched against his armor and the movement was so sharp, so jerky that he swore he could almost feel it as he watched her fingertips press whiter against its surface. Her face remained impassive as she drew in a breath, chest silently rising, letting it out just as slowly.

“I am not a woman schooled well in familial love, Kellam. My mother was not a cruel woman, but she was certainly distant. I am ever filled with pride in being her daughter, but I would never wish that distance upon my child— upon _any_ child. While I had suspicions towards Laurent, now since dissipated, I worry that part of my behaviour has come from seeing our comrades with their children… They do not seem to struggle as I do.”

“Then… What?” Kellam asked, trying to keep his tone gentle, trying hard in making sure Miriel stayed open to him. It wasn’t often she opened up and he wasn’t about to disrespect this, or so much as imply such a thing. “Is this what you’ve been so stressed over? The thought that you’re… that you think you’re somehow _unfit_ to be a mother or something?”

Miriel inhale came in harsher this time- rougher, even- and it quavered as she held it in place. It was tension in its purest form and her words came out quiet. Her nails scraped the metal of his rerebrace audibly “Or a wife.”

“Miriel!”

Her eyes shut and her jaw set and she looked so much like Laurent that it was uncanny. Her words were stiffer than any he’d ever heard from her. “My mother passed before she could teach me anything of use regarding such matters, Kellam. Much of the time, I am merely following in your movements or but mimicking that of which I see in the relationships of our companions. Often do I attempt to incorporate the information I gather into my own mannerisms but even then I find myself straining to do so. I have little to offer you or Laurent and I wonder if there was some truth in all of which people once spoke of me—” Her grip tightened more, pale skin going pink.

“Hey, I’m with you, okay?” Boldness had apparently struck him and Miriel looked to him yet again, eyes as wide as he had ever seen them, even compared to the brief seconds flash from when he’d proposed… but there was an incomprehension there that made boldness turn to nervousness. He swallowed. “Always. I… I don’t know what I’m doing either- hells, I hardly know what I’m doing most of the time when I’m not on the battlefield- but you’re not alone and you’ve never had to _offer_ me _anything._ I didn’t marry you for you because I had a… a _use_ for you, I married you because I _love_ you and I know Laurent loves you too- _adores_ you, even… But whatever you’re worrying about, you don’t have to.”

He bit the inside of his cheek, drawing in a breath of his own as his hand came to settle atop hers, carefully thumbing the tops of her fingers. “Not for something like this… but if you ever are, I’m… I’m here. You can be honest with me, and you don’t have to keep your guard up all the time. W-Whatever people said, just forget it. Don’t listen to it. It doesn’t matter anymore. Neither of us are alone anymore; especially not _you._ ”

At some point, he must have ducked his head, only realizing when small fingers touched his cheek, a thumb brushing over the high of it and he cracked an eye open just barely. Miriel smiled softly. “Perhaps I should have you interrupt me more often…” His face heated and Miriel’s thumb brushed his skin again, settling next to her other fingers. “I am sorry to have burdened you with so much worry.”

He laughed. “It suits me better than it suits you… So I think you should let it bother _me_ instead. You be the smart one and I’ll be the worrier.”

Miriel brought her other hand to his skin, her eyes crinkled at the corners with such a delicate form of mirth that both complimented and contrasted with the gentleness in her other features; as he ever did, Kellam thought she was beautiful. “Shall we figure this out together then?”

He set a hand over hers, twining their fingers as tight as he could without hurting her, feeling safe. Feeling _seen._ “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


End file.
